Sunday, February 27, 2011

blueberry muffins from heaven

(new pottery by Gary Rith above, Penny on the cat perch looking out the window, below)

Years ago I had a Dannon yogurt blueberry muffin recipe that I liked, but tossed out when my dairy allergies worsened. But, as this pic shows, there is excellent soy yogurt available, and I wanted to try the recipe again using that.

I remember years ago, just as me and the wife were starting to see each other, she invited me over for paella. I asked what I could do and she said 'make sangria'. I had never made sangria before, and went to the Chicago Public Library to find a recipe (remember libraries????). They had a wonderful and huge collection of cookbooks, and I found what I needed. Man, those were the days: take the elevated train downtown, walk up the street, up the stairs, through security, find the building directory for cookbooks, take an elevator, wander past a thousand sleeping hobos enjoying the library's warmth, then start pulling books off the shelf, flick through them, find what you want, find a xerox machine.... I MISS THOSE GOOD TIMES! I was at the Ithaca library yesterday checking out mysteries, still full of hobos, but anyways...

So, these days, you want a recipe, any recipe, you just sit at your desk and in two seconds you have dozens to choose from. I did not like the Dannon recipe, as it requires milk too, and kept searching, and like this recipe that I used here. It is very simple, esp. since I rejected their approach of dirtying every bowl in the house, simply mixing everything into one bowl. It worked fine.

-crack egg into bowl, add oil, vanilla and sugar and stir, then add yogurt and stir some more-add flour, bake powder and soda, stir thoroughly-gently mix in the blubes-spoon batter into pan, it is thick and sticky-bake 25 mins, check and make sure a knife stuck in comes out clean, that's it! And soy yogurt worked wonderfully :)

Looks worth trying.Here is a chocolate cake recipe to try- the glaze is not needed, and it might take an exra 15 minutes to cookhttp://www.instructables.com/id/The-BEST-chococlate-cake-ever...that-happens-to-be/